consumed them all, entirely. The beasts that had probably died on the grounds of the estate in Bel-Air — the basilisks, the griffin — would never be found, Carter was sure. Al-Kalli’s teenage son, Mehdi, and his attorneys had sealed off the place, and Mehdi would make sure that his family’s secret treasure — even if now it was only a pile of bones — would remain a secret forever.
As for the gorgon, Carter wasn’t so sure. But he hadn’t told Del — he hadn’t told anyone — about his encounter with the creature in Summit View. That was his own secret — his and Beth’s. One day, when he was back in shape, when the world had returned to some kind of normalcy, he would pursue the matter, he would try to find out what had happened. He would confess it all to Del, and together they could mount their own private expedition.
But not just yet.
“Here,” Del said, handing Carter the field binoculars. “I’m going to head up to the crest. Why don’t you take a breather?”
Carter hated to admit it, but Del was right. He should take a break.
“Thanks,” he said, sitting down in the dirt. “You might be right.”
“I’m always right, Bones.”
Del set off toward the waterfall, and Carter took a deep breath and looked out over the canyon; the Santa Monica Mountains rose up on the other side, their ravaged flanks showing the sweeping path of the flames. Beyond them, and just visible past their peaks, lay the tranquil blue of the Pacific, shining in the hot summer sun.
Carter kneaded his calves, where the skin was still tender, and flexed his ankles, still sore from their sprains. He stretched his long legs out in front of him. The sun felt good, like a hot pack. He wondered what Beth and Joey were up to. Had Beth dared to venture outside and run the risk of a gardening conversation? The Critchleys had made it clear that they could stay as long as they liked — in fact, Carter thought they rather liked having a Getty curator in their guesthouse — but Carter knew that he had to start looking for a new apartment soon. The housing on the west side was at a premium right now, with so many displaced Angelenos, but there were some buildings not all that far from the Page Museum and the La Brea Tar Pits that were still advertising summer specials.
He’d look into it when he went back to work on Monday.
For now, he would just enjoy the downtime.
Off in the distance, he could see a few spots on the mountainsides where the chapparal had not been burned off, and a couple of others where there were even signs of new growth; yellow flowers had popped up, in profusion, in one area to the northwest. Even from here, Del would know exactly what they were. He’d miss having Del around, he thought, but he knew that his friend’s university leave was running out, and he’d have to be heading back up to Tacoma soon.
A tiny spot of red, flickering like a flame, appeared among the distant yellow flowers.
Carter’s heart stopped.
His hand reached into his knapsack, fumbling for his cell phone.
Was it a hot spot? A place where the fire, even now, was still burning?
But then the red spot… moved.
He put the cell phone on the ground and picked up instead the field binoculars Del had left with him.
He kept his eyes on it while unsnapping the steel case, taking out the binoculars, unfolding them.
The red spot moved again, and this time he noticed that it seemed to move with some deliberation, traveling from one clump of the yellow flowers to another.
He put the binoculars to his eyes, quickly trying to focus them.
He found the scorched crest of the mountain, then moved down, and across, to find the yellow flowers.
He twisted the dial again, gently, to gain greater focus.
And there it was, the red spot — only now he could see that it was larger than he had thought, and that it could expand and contract.
When it moved again, he saw that it had a shape — the shape of a bird.
A huge bird.
And now his heart beat faster than ever.
He followed its path as it spread its wings, caught a sudden updraft, and drifted on the wind to another patch of flowers. He lost it for a moment, glanced over the top of the binoculars to get a fresh fix, and then found it again.
Its hooked beak, its scarlet feathers, its massive wing-spread were all unmistakable.
Instinctively, he stood, never letting his lock on it waver.
And he thought again of the ancient lore of the phoenix, the immortal bird that rose, renewed, from its own blazing pyre… and he could see how it might have appeared that way. With its wings folded, it looked like a beam of light, but when it spread them again, it was like a bouquet of flames, opening up and out. It moved with all the incandescence and unpredictability of fire.
Had Del seen it, Carter wondered, from his perch higher up the trail?
The bird paused — Carter couldn’t see what it was doing, its body obscured by shadow — before it suddenly raised its head and Carter could again see its glittering eyes. Had it sensed something, even from this great distance? Did it know it was being watched?
It seemed impossible, but then, the creature itself was an impossibility.
It unfurled its curved wings and glided off the mountain-side, traveling from light to shadow, its crimson body like a beacon of flame against the black and defoliated mountain-side. And then, suddenly, it changed course, sweeping toward a gap in the mountain range, toward a wedge of blue ocean far off on the horizon. With one beat of its wings, it swooped into the narrow pass, and with another it went nearly through. Carter tried to adjust his focus, but he was losing it. The phoenix was becoming just a tiny scarlet dot, like a spot of blood from a pricked finger.
It beat its mighty wings one more time, and by now, though he had lost it in the distance, Carter knew that it must be over the ocean… sailing out of sight, sailing toward the sun.
He put the binoculars down… and wondered if he, or anyone, would ever see it again. A part of him — the paleontologist, the man of science — desperately wanted to; nothing so wonderful should ever be lost to the world. Not again. But there was also another part — a part that was strangely closer to his heart, his spirit, a part that had been alive in him ever since childhood — that hoped the phoenix would vanish for good, flying into the sun forever.
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
Much of the action in this book takes place in two Los Angeles locations: the J. Paul Getty Museum in Brentwood and the George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries, a satellite facility of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
While most of what I write about these places is accurate, a lot of it, I’ll be the first to admit, is pure conjecture. The characters, too, are wholly fictional.
That said, these two institutions are, to my mind, the jewels in the crown of L.A., and I hope that this book conveys my boundless admiration for both.
The same principle holds true for the sections dealing with medieval manuscripts. But I do owe a huge debt to one man: Christoper de Hamel, without whose books,
